Lima

Sábado, 26-Julio-2014

Isn't it fascinating... 

... That a 150 mile bus ride takes 15 hours to complete. 

Yes you read that correctly. Our 9-10 hour overnight bus from La Merced to Lima took 15 hours. Turns out we decided to travel on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Friday was the last day of school before holiday break and man did we find that out the hard way. Monday is Independence Day and it's when many Peruvians travel to visit family. At least the drive was pretty...

... That the mountain "highways" are too small for coach buses. 
The biggest problem we ran into while driving was the fact that the turns in the mountains were too tight for big buses. This means that police had to stop traffic in one direction to let buses make a wide enough turn. I was awake for at least 4 of these stop-and-go turns. Basically we would sit for 10-15 minutes to let other traffic pass and then it was our turn so we'd move up a little bit in line and repeat the process. 

... That a VIP coach bus turned into a sauna in the middle of the winter. 
The mountains are at such a high elevation that the sun bakes everything. Every time the bus would stop (which was very often), the driver would turn off the entire bus to conserve gas. This meant that the A/C turned off as well. At one point I think the bus was well over 90 F. Thank goodness I have experience with such heat but others were dying. 

Lima, finally!

As we drove into the city limits I realized that this is the first time I've seen Lima by day! When I arrived from the US, it was 2am and we left on a 7am bus to Huancayo. The most noticeable thing was the alabaster white fog that covered everything. This fog is known as garúa and has actually been the inspiration for several well known literary fictions including Moby Dick. Herman Melville wrote that Lima is the "strangest saddest city thou can't see". 

We finally made it to the hostel and immediately went out for a walk. Being immobile for 16+ hours is very uncomfortable to say the least. We decided to walk to the outdoor air mall that overlooks the beach. It is quite the spot!! 

Then we walked down to the beach and saw all the surfers and para gliders. The cliffs are a perfect place to go paragliding apparently. 

Along the way we passed a couple parks and lots of pretty houses. 

Final FIMRC Dinner

All of David's house, some of Elana's house, and of course Franćois went out to this cute restaurant near the hostel. Lima, specifically the Miraflores district, is known for its food. As in people come to Lima literally to just eat. Lima Cuisine is #8 on the Top 20 things to do in Peru! 

This particular restaurant had great reviews on it's ceviche, a popular Lima dish. There were lots of delicious things on the menu so we decided to order a couple dishes and share. We ordered ceviche for the whole table and then Aaron, Lauren, Morgan, and I split two seafood dishes. One was seafood fried rice and the other was seafood marinated in a delicious sauce. 

Salsateca

Time to party!! Lima is not only known for its food but for its nightlife. The boys were in Lima last weekend when they went to Machu Picchu and they found an awesome strip of salsa clubs. The first one we went to was called San de Cuba and it had a live band playing!! I absolutely loved watching all the couples salsa!! They're so good! Erin and I took our chances on the dance floor and pulled out some moves Aniña and Paula taught us. Guess they were pretty good bc we soon found ourselves some dance partners! The guys we met taught us even more salsa moves and I literally never wanted to leave. 

We stayed for as long as the band played but when they took a break we went outside to find the rest of the FIMRC crew. They had gone next door to an American club and holy crap. There were men dancing on stilts wearing light suits shooting lasers, lots of confetti being thrown, several fog machines on steroids and some women dancing on stage. What. The. Heck. It was awesome!! Why can't clubs in Atlanta be this ridiculous!